RE: Bush the Irrelevant and Other Concerns

Dear Mr. Random:

I read your worthy article, "Bush the Irrelevant: Alone in His Tower" (Dissident Voice, July 28th, 2007) so I am writing to you. A few comments:

"... if it were in the father's power to disown the presidency of the son, he would do so for the son has shamed the family and laid waste to the Bush legacy just as he has shamed the nation and its legacy in the world..."

---> And yet George Sr., apparently some of the others in the Bush family, and some of their business acquaintances have made a LOT more money thanks to his son's administration. If the son messed up such that they lost that money... ooh, THEN you'd probably see some criticism of Dubya that hurt!

And another, longer one:Like you, I despise this administration, but for another reason as well - a reason that you apparently are ignorant of. (I state this because you wrote, "... No, the Al Qaeda terrorists that killed Americans on 9/11 are still in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan - our sometime ally."). Actually, it's HIGHLY doubtful that it was "Al Qaeda terrorists" behind those attacks. In actuality, the Bush administration higher-ups (Cheney is a very probable suspect), in collusion with top brass at the Pentagon, and probably certain elements of the Israeli government, were almost certainly behind the attacks of 9/11. Also, bin Laden is reportedly long dead.

I recommend you read David Ray Griffin's books, which are well-reasoned and encompass much of what happened without overwhelming the reader with details. A very good 'first step' is "The New Pearl Harbor - Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11 (Updated Edition with a new afterword)"; 2004- Olive Branch Press. ISBN 1-56656-552-9. It's calm, logical & doesn't exaggerate.

Also, his follow-up book, "The 9/ 11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions", "... provides excellent analysis of the commission's report, clearly demonstrating that the commission's account of 9/11 was written to clear the Pentagon, White House and Justice Department of any wrongdoing." (quoted from: www.cooperativeresearch.org/project.jsp?project=911_project)Oh, and www.cooperativeresearch.org (the very worthy site just above) likely has the most complete, fact-based 9/11 Timeline available anywhere. See: www.cooperativeresearch.org/project.jsp?project=911_project. Other interesting reads:
"9/11 Synthetic Terror - MADE IN USA" , by Webster G.Tarpley;

"Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil ", by Catherine Austin Fitts (Foreword), Michael C. Ruppert; www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/071204_final_fraud.shtml. www.911citizenswatch.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=336.

"The Final Fraud: 9/11 Commission closes its doors to the public; Cover-Up Complete" By Michael KaneWe must not forgot that horrific day. I now firmly believe that the attacks were at least somewhat orchestrated by the higher-ups in this Machiavellian administration, together with some in the Pentagon. Of course, not everyone in the administration nor in the Pentagon would have been involved. It appears that the prime suspects are:

* "Tricky Dick" Cheney, the incredibly greedy actual "President";

* Rumsfeld (who predicted the 3rd plane (missile?) attack on the Pentagon - remarkable clairvoyance from a guy who's been quite lacking in foresight when it comes to Iraq, etc.);

* Paul Wolfowitz (a true 'chicken hawk', warmonger, and seeming Israel-firster (Zionist), who is now - guess what? -back at AEI ...

* George H.W. Bush, who reportedly had a late-night discussion with Cheney in the White House on 9/10/2001; Just a coincidence??

* Air Force Generals Richard Myers & Ralph Eberhart; and probably others.

BTW, a hypothesis about 'Dubya' (in Tarpley's book, pp. 273-5): George W. Bush was almost certainly not involved in the planning, but may have avoided being assassinated {on the morning of 9/11, by some 'reporters' sent to 'interview' him} by acquiescing to the plot. Likely he was told what the planners felt he needed to know, and as a result he didn't look surprised in the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida when he was told of the second plane hitting the WTC by WH Chief of Staff Card, and didn't panic at all (indeed, he hardly reacted at all, and even dawdled around, having a good chat with the people in attendance - after finishing reading about the pet goat!).

**On another front, some foreign nations' spy networks were possibly involved, to some extent. For instance, Israel's Mossad is highly suspect, Pakistan's Intelligence service is possible, and perhaps the UK's intelligence service was involved as well. Other countries - Russia, France, Germany, etc. - which attempted to warn us that something was up are seemingly innocent of involvement.

Well, I hope this email is informative for you. Please be careful out there... another 'false flag' terrorist attack (maybe for this summer) has been warned aboutby at least three well-known Americans. All the best...I'm fortunate that I now live abroad...

Peace & Justice, Ray Hrycko

The Beatlicks: A Short Story by Joe Speer

[A new short story and we just finished a short film - 11 minutes - strong imagry and great soundtrack including wZ when the flute meets the sea - peace, Joe]

Setting Sun

JJ drove toward the setting sun when he passed a stalled car. He pulled over to the side of the road and backed up to where a man was standing. JJ opened the door and the man approached.

“I’m glad you stopped," Algernon said. "My car went kaput. I stepped on the gas but it didn’t do any good so I pulled off the road."

JJ fixed a broken fuel line and gave Algernon a thumbs up. He walked away as Algernon shouted.

“Hey, where are you going? How much do I owe you?”

“You don’t owe me anything.”

“Listen, I don’t live far from here. Why don’t you stop by for a visit?”

“Sounds good,” JJ said.

JJ followed Algernon off onto a dirt road back to a remote homestead.

On the porch sat an old man in a rocking chair with overalls tucked into his cowboy boots. As the two men approached the old house, Algernon clued JJ, “That’s my grandfather, Mr. Lucero. He doesn’t see very well. He likes to sit out on the porch and wait for the sunset. We have to describe it to him. He likes to tell stories about the old days on the railroad.” Introductions were made and Algernon slipped off to gather refreshments as JJ found a chair near the old man.

“How’s the sun looking now?” Mr. Lucero asked.

“The sky looks like a well used coloring book,” JJ said.

“I dreamed about my brother Cash last night," Mr Lucero said. "He spent a lot of time in and out of jail with one hitch of several years in the pen. He met an old man in the lockup that was a whiz at cards. He liked my brother and taught him all his card tricks. They spent hours everyday handling cards. My brother became quite proficient, quick and deft.

“When Cash got out he spent all his time at the card table. And he won most of the time. He learned about marked decks and got a little group of gamblers together. They worked the camps along the railroad or the wheatfields, or where ever a lot of men with money were gathered. They spread out, each one getting into a different card game. They won most of the time. Then late at night they would meet at a hotel room and split the take.

“Cash would disappear for long periods of time then suddenly turn up and leech off Mother. He was loaded with money but never gave us anything. Instead he’d get drunk and buy his companionship. After his last binge he hung around the house for days and got on Mother’s nerves.

“He tried to come up with some quick claim deed so he could sell her property. When I found out about it I ran him off. He finally died passed out on the tracks when a train ran over him in the dark. I felt guilty about it for a long time. Maybe if we had tried to reabilitate him. How’s the sun now?” Grandpa asked. Algernon responded out of habit as he returned to the porch with cold Tecate and lime.

“It’s half gone, below the horizon, Grandpa.”

“Your grandfather told me a story about his brother,” JJ said. “I have a brother who is a baseball umpire. He got me interested in baseball because he was always talking about it. I went to a few games with him and just watched. Then I started to practice by myself. I collected a pile of rocks and laid out a playing field in the empty lot next to our house. I had a cracked baseball bat, a castoff from the Little Leaguers. I tossed rocks up in the air and tried to hit them over the far fence. It was frustrating at first because I would swing and miss. With daily practice I got better. People saw me in my imaginary games and called me “rockhead".

“I had two imaginary teams with some of the best players that ever lived on my lineup. There was Ty Cobb and Willie Mays. I got to where I could hit a rock over the fence almost every time. I could also hit the rock in different directions, like down the right field line. Mother was the only person who understood my devotion to these imaginary games. She watched me from the window sometimes. She never interrupted me while I was playing a game. My team won most of the time and I would come inside sweating and smiling. Mother smiled, too.

“I went with my brother once to a pickup game. They came up one man short and asked me to fill in. I told them I hadn’t played a real game before. But they didn’t care. Told me to come on and play. Fill out the roster.

“My brother was behind the plate and called me out on strikes my first time up. I came to bat in the bottom of the ninth. We were behind by two runs. There were two outs and two on when I stepped into the batter’s box. I felt a new pressure that I had not experienced hitting rocks. My teammates were depending on me. The count was three and two when the pitcher served me up a high fast ball. I saw a rock falling through the air. I saw the picket fence in the backyard and thought about my imaginary teammates. I concentrated every muscle on the point where the bat met the ball over home plate and sent it with great force over the left fielder’s head. They told me later that my home run had set a record, a real tape job. When Mother heard about it she just smiled and nodded. I quit hitting rocks after that game. On that one showing I had an offer to try out for another team. But I felt my fantasies had been realized and I was free to pursue other interests.”

“Where’s the sun now,” Grandpa asked?

"Gone down," JJ said. "The lightshow is over."

"You can sleep here," Algernon said. "We have an extra room."

"Sounds good."

We all slept soundly.

Joe Speer

Jake's Word: Deport Dobbs

[RE: Jazzman Chronicle: Deport Lou Dobbs -- Why CNN is Worse than Fox]

Another timely, important piece. We're all sick of Lou Dobbs, for any number of reasons, but primarily because he won't leave the immigration issue alone, or even give other, equally important issues the same air time.

Something else I've noticed in the news generally is that where once politicians and media (is there any difference?) once spoke of the poor, now they speak of the middle class. When John Edwards recently spent a day or two talking about the poor FOX News promptly asked the question that was on the mind of every conservative in the county - Is discussion of issues regarding the poor socialist? By labeling any concern for the poor as socialist they dismissed the poor from the agenda entirely. The poor were already of little concern because most of them don't vote, those that do vote are divided, and none of them contribute significant amounts of money to political campaigns. Welcome back to the gilded age when things were right with America. Corporations and their ultra-wealthy owners ran the government, the poor had no rights and certainly no assistance from the government, and all good Americans were supposed to get rich or die trying. In light of all this it's important to recognize the new poor, namely, the middle class. It's PC to lament the fate of the middle class, but this is only the corporate media's way of bidding them a fond farewell while assuaging their own consciences. In a world where wealth is the only, true moral value, those with the most wealth are the noblest citizens. Those with little or no wealth are a weight to the system and should be discarded from the concerns of the nation, and too bad they can't all be deported for failing to succeed.

Mind of Mansel: Burn the Carcass at Half-Mast

As I. Lewis Scooter Libby's plane dips its wing in triumph as it leaves american waters and heads into the darkness towards havana, the nation can rest well and awaken to celebrate the nation's holiday this fourth of July and know that the stable environment once enjoyed in the nation's capitol has been wretched onto the floor of a DC-10 as storm clouds gather at 5,000 feet.

Personal power unchecked in the Nixon administration and fueled by the confusion and wrath of a bitter jungle battle in Vietnam sent plumbers to jail, testimony to the floor of the house, once determined and clear headed journalists to the parking garages of the collected unconscious of an american public that now shrieks at staffers for more oily residue over their person as they await not a better tee time but a better table at the hanging.

Libby now downing a few drinks and stroking the side of his laptop and composing emails to the editor of the Washington Times shrugs off a call from Fred Dalton Thompson who wants him to consult on his campaign of dirty tricks before it has officially kicked in. Thompson said, "Surely, Scooter, surely you gotta know a few Puerto Ricans who slobbered over Bill in a steak house john somewhere in Virginia." Scruples run deep for Scooter who enjoys connections straight up the biker chain to Dick Cheney and down to Rupert Murdoch.

- Chris Mansel

Mind of Mansel: Obituaries In The Passing Lane

How long have I been dead? You could theorize that I was never born. I was born after the Tet offensive in Vietnam, during the protests against the war in Vietnam, in a time of assainations, and during this time we were supplying weapons and training the very countries we would fight later in the so-called global war on terror. Has my generation had a chance to grow in a time of peace? If you think there has been any extended time of peace at all during the time of the late sixties till present day war in Iraq then you are sadly naive and it is that kind of naive voter who throws america into the line of fire.

Turn your back on Afghanistan and you process the executions of american soldiers in iraq at an alarming rate. To try and outlast, to try and kill off an idea, an idea based on religion, has never worked nor will it ever work. To surround yourself with the same kind of fervor you are fighting against sends the signal of imminent disaster.


- Chris Mansel

Mind of Mansel: American I.E.D.'s

Burn the wheel and roll it over the graves, exhaust the I.E.D.'s but wait is this american soil? How far into the future can this be? How far off? Would the N.R.A. arm themselves against their own? Would they seek the resources of Mexico in a state of crisis?

What brought terror to our shores in 2001? As Noam Chomsky says, read the public record. The public record is scary enough, like any theory built on video evidence the rest isn't too difficult to amass. Sure you'll be called a bunch of scary names and maybe even driven off to an abandoned warehouse and shot full of something you couldn't even pronounce even if you were a registered Republican (but wait some of them don't believe the cover story) but it's ok, really it is, you're not alone.

But like I asked at the beginning: how far off are I.E.D.'s from the american shores? When was the last time you read your Civil Rights history? Seriously, know your history. IT MIGHT DO YOU SOME GOOD.

- Chris Mansel


They made a wasteland and called it peace.

- Tacitus

Mind of Mansel: Don't You Ever Get Downtown?

A sad day at the Gates of Hell as Dick Cheney and Henry Kissinger have died on the same day. The devil addresses the two men and tells them the sad news. He only has enough space that day for one more soul to torment. If they go up to heaven they will have to share a bed with Bill Clinton and have breakfest served to them in bed each morning for eternty by a scantily clad Gloria Steinman (sic).

So it is left to Kissinger and Cheney to prove which of them is the worst person. They are allowed to use props and if they are drawn into a corner they can use the call a friend feature. In the end Cheney's pictures of Iraqi children being burned alive are no match for the twenty seven dump trucks of documents Kissinger has driven in and the witness testimonies. He even offers to call several now deceased dictators and one in particular, a small man named Uncle Ho standing next to the gate with his arms folded against his chest who works in the kitchen.

Cheney must return to earth for another life as Ann Coulter BDSM partner without the use of his arms and legs and a liberal streak a country mile wide.

- Chris Mansel

[christophermansel@hotmail.com]

Jake's Word RE: Bloomberg

[a response to the Jazzman Chronicle "Bloomberg: Wrong Man, Right Idea"]

Absolutely, literally, on the money!

The nation-state is dissolving and being replaced by corporate feudalism. This is pretty much the future that Philip K. Dick, William Gibson, and William Burroughs envisioned. At the time they wrote it seemed dystopic, dark, but still romantic fiction - a possible future. Turns out they were prophets with stunning accuracy. The solutions they suggested were not democratic, but anarchic. I am hoping that there is still a chance for democratic change, but that would require that the populace awake from the deep video dream.  Only great discomfort on a massive scale would wake them. The feudal lords aren't likely to allow that to happen. That volume of Emma Goldman on my shelf looks increasingly attractive.

Rave on,
Jake

(Jake Berry is the author of Brambu Drezi and other works of contemporary genius)

Mind of Mansel: On Account Of

Translate the Constitution into any language on earth and I am sure more than a few laws would have to be re-written. Imagine the section on liberty being translated into some of the little known languages of the amazon and suddenly life inside our borders changes dramatically. Imagine the right to free speech being changed into the right to listen. Imagine having to try and explain why you need amendments in the first place.

- Chris Mansel

"Writers imagine that they cull stories from the world."
- Arundhati Roy

Mind of Mansel: Listening Posts

Iraq, the grim reminder of foreign policy based upon a racist ideal. When in history has hate ever ended without overwhelming bloodshed of innocent lives? The war in Iraq is based upon more than oil, more than greed; read through the rhetoric and you'll find despair. There is no Lombardiesque speech underlying the message. When you see an interview with those in the Bush administration, the true believers that are still in their employ, you can sense that even in their cultish period of determination there is a craziness bleeding through, an ominous aftermath you can see in the eyes of the true believer. You can almost see how they will fall. You can almost hear the screams at the Fox Network, "W is Great, W is Great!" the voices echoing down into the street just before they dispense another report of misinformation.

- Chris Mansel

"Hushed in grim repose, expects its evening prey."
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Mind of Mansel: Kick out the Jams

"Kick out the jams Kissinger baby!" - George W. Bush

The president appears to be boarding Air Force One until you realize the blip reflecting against the metal building across the tarmac. Could it be a GOP reunion of the Capricorn One landing or a Weapons of Mass Destruction anniversary of some sorts? No, it's just another beer run to the Crawford, Texas, ranch and isn't it a good time for it? I mean seriously citizens of the United States, the man lost his watch that was given to his grandfather by the great Karl Rove idol Nazi propaganda Minister Himmler. So cut the guy a little slack.

So he is flying coach to Crawford, Texas, and tasting those wonderful nuts we all love on the great airline that is Southwest. He'll land in Houston and have to take a range rover from there but it'll be stocked with beer and the interior is done up in one of those pants suits Condi wears so just draw your own mental picture ok?

Enough said.


- Chris Mansel

The Right Wing Colonoscopy (The Polyps, The Scars, The Gas, Oh My)

While the right-wing immortalizes Fred Dalton Thompson and now pisses on the mere distant memory of McCain and the ol' straw boys round the bucket, they sight Thompson's height at 6'6 except for ol' puppy blood himself Robert Novak who in his column cited Thompson at 6'7. Now you can draw your own conclusion why Novak cared to give Thompson that extra inch, but pardon the pun, I'll take a stab at it....

Maybe Novak has a thing for sailors like Genet or Capote and after seeing Thompson in that movie as an Admiral (rear admiral?) he just got overwhelmed? Seriously, James Carville's bald head wasn't enough for Novak, neither was Tucker Carlson's cute little bow tie so who knows maybe Novak has been waiting for just such an event since Fred Dalton Thompson kicked country rag-o-muffin Lorrie Morgan to the curb.

- Chris Mansel


"The sun comes forth, and many reptiles spawn."

- Percy Bysshe Shelley

The Democratic Debate: Scoring the Contenders

RANDOM JACK: DISSEMINATE FREELY.

By Jack Random


While it is difficult to call the rhetorical exchange that took place in New Hampshire tonight (June 3, 2007) a debate, I will accept the term as a convention. Hosted by CNN, the infamous promoter of mainstream politics, it featured two hours of roaming commentary by eight candidates, six of whom can be considered contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination (the remaining two serving as agent provocateurs).

It may seem foolish to rank the candidates according to their performance but it is no less foolish to listen to the absurd post-debate spin of pundits and politicos. My rankings are based on substance rather than style, though it should be noted that the only legitimate candidate that showed real passion was a surprisingly impassioned Senator Joe Biden. Senator John Edwards would come in second on style with Senators Obama, Clinton and Richardson losing style points for their usual bland approach to reasoned discourse.

Given a distinctly progressive-populist-antiwar-libertarian bias, I ranked the candidates on twenty topics, with a maximum score of two and a minimum score of minus one.

Accordingly, the winner of the June 3 Democratic Presidential Debate was clearly Bill Richardson, Governor of New Mexico. The rankings are as follows:

GOVERNOR BILL RICHARDSON: 14. Positive scores on Iraq (2 points for the call to de-authorize the war), Immigration, Health Care, Gay Rights, Energy Policy (2), Environment (2), Veterans Care, Darfur, Education and the Budget. No negative scores.

FORMER SENATOR JOHN EDWARDS: 10. Positives on Iraq (2), Health Care (2), Energy (2), Iran, Pakistan, Darfur, Tax Policy and Poverty. Negative on Gay Rights (something about states rights).

SENATOR CHRIS DODD: 9. Positives on Iraq, Immigration, Energy Policy (2), Environment, Military Spending, Human Rights, Military Draft, Education, and the Budget. Negative on Darfur (bizarre objection to boycotting the Chinese Olympics).

CONGRESSMAN DENNIS KUCINICH: 8. Positives on Iraq (2), Health Care (2), Assassination Policy (what a loopy question on taking out Osama bin Laden), Trade Policy (2) and the Budget.

SENATOR JOE BIDEN: 5. Positives on Energy Policy, Environment, Iran, Darfur (2), and Election Reform. Negative on Iraq (defended his vote to fund the war).

SENATOR BARRACK OBAMA: 5. Positives on Iraq, Immigration, Health Care, Veterans Care, Pakistan, Darfur and Tax Policy. Negatives on Military Spending and Assassination Policy (too quick to let civilians die in a hypothetical strike on Osama bin Laden).

FORMER SENATOR MIKE GRAVEL: 5. Positives on Iraq (2), Energy Policy, Environment, and Military Spending. (Gravel disappeared in the second hour.)

SENATOR HILLARY CLINTON: 1. Positives on Health Care, Hypothetical Assassination of OBL, Tax Policy and the Budget. Negatives on Iraq (equivocal as always), Iran and Pakistan (she believes she must be perceived as McCain tough).

CNN: Zero for wasting our time with irrelevant questions and for not bringing up Afghanistan, Lebanon, Palestine, Global Warming, New Orleans, Poverty, Wage Decline, Individual Debt, Social Security, Human Rights, Civil Liberties, No Child Left Behind or Fair Trade. What planet on they living on?

For the record, as an independent Green Party member, I have no horse in this race but I think it fair to conclude that the overall winner was Senator Edwards. Governor Richardson has policy but he does not have the flair and commanding presence to win a national election – except as vice president.

In my estimation, Senators Clinton and Obama are both suffering from the equivocation disease that affects those who perceive themselves as leaders of the pack. Hillary has never shown the kind of passion that inspires. Obama seems to have lost the magic he displayed on the floor of the last Democratic convention.

Would anyone in this group make a good president? Would anyone succeed in ending the Iraq war, resolving the crisis in Afghanistan, reverse criminal policies on pollution, civil liberties and human rights? Would anyone really establish universal health care? Would anyone take on the critical issue of trade policy?

Discounting Kucinich, sadly, it is unlikely. Then again, would anyone be worse than what we have today?

Vote Independent. End the war.


JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE APPEARED ON THE ALBION MONITOR, PEACE-EARTH-JUSTICE, THE NATIONAL FREE PRESS, PACIFIC FREE PRESS, LEFTWARD, DISSIDENT VOICE AND COUNTERPUNCH.

Mind of Mansel: Falwell & Lords of Discipline

The Lords of Discipline and The Mothers of Invention

Imagine a multi-ethnic Green Zone, forces united in freedom, much less fries all banded together in blood and torutre cartoons, american and Iraqi, all having to show their I.D. cards to prove thier americanism.

Imagine a rash of wild fires now dying out in Florida and Georgia now that Jerry Falwell has been put into the ground. Never mind the fact that one of his own was armed with bombs. But that story went away as fast as it arrived didn't it? Just how fast did the minor White House spokesman hit the Interstate when the bombs were discovered? How much cover can a post mortem on the truth cover? Imagine that much fire following Falwell into the already sulfur stinking smell of hell.

Imagine the photographs of the Democratic leadership backing off of the Iraq plan so fast they fall head first into one another's asses so far as to breed new dwarfs of entitlements.

Just imagine.

- Chris Mansel (christophermansel@hotmail.com)

Wizard's Corner: Ancient among the Ancient

[Editor's note: The wZ -- aka Jim Wizniewski -- is on pilgrimage in India.]

Ancient among the ancient
Thousands of crows making their flight each morning
Across the river to the city...
Never letting me forget...
Remember the canyon...
The sacred shot into the void.

Vast plains of India stretch before me
With foreign sounds and crow caws...
Sending you a perfect shot into the moment.

wZ

A Call to Warriors: Stand up for Leonard Peltier!

To All Indigenous People. To AIM. To Leonard's Sisters, Brothers, Friends and Supporters

"Where are the warriors?" Remember? These words of the past motivated The Movement and are still pertinent today. Have we forgotten how to be active and strong?

I'm calling out to all women, the children. I'm calling out to the Warriors who carry the honor of their fathers' and grandfathers' and great-grandfathers' names. Stand up for your people. Call yourselves out. Show yourselves to Creator and present yourself, with pride, to the world.

Stand up until the seats in the UN represent every nation of people in Turtle Island.

Stand up and call for protection of Mother Earth.

Save Bear Butte and All Sacred sites.

Stand up for all nations and all peoples,

Stand alone together forever.

Where are the warriors?

I am making a plea to all AIM leaders and members and to all Native peoples, especially the young people. I am making a plea to all of Leonard's friends and supporters. Gather this June 26th in Oglala and show Indigenous support for our brother Leonard Peltier. His parole hearing is one short year away.

Stand up. Stand up for The People. Stand up for Leonard Peltier.

Where are the warriors?

Contact www.oglalacommemoration.com.>

Be in Oglala on June 26th.

In Peace,

Keith Rabin - rockartist1@earthlink.net

Johnny Got His Gun

***

David went to Canada
Dick got a college deferment
Charlie was a conscientious objector
George joined the National Guard
Sam was classified 4F
And Johnny got his gun

We all know what happened to Johnny
Shot down in Nam
A victim of the Tet Offensive
A living thinking mind trapped in a body
Paralyzed to the eyes

Johnny got his gun and 58,000 of his brothers came home in a box
Millions of Asian Johnnies died by our bombs
Hundreds of thousands came home with broken bodies
Broken hearts broken minds broken spirits
Souls shattered by the horror of war

Forty years later a terrorist strike
We send our kids to war with bitterroot
Star spangled distorted sight

How many more must die to appease the god of vengeance?
How many more for an imagined victory parade?
How many more to pretend they did not die in vain?

Fallujah and Wounded Knee
Ramadi and Sand Creek
Abu Ghraib and the Trail of Tears

My Lai and Haditha

We can bury the dead but we cannot bury the truth

David went to Canada and Johnny got his gun


Jazz.

The Wind by James Wisniewski AKA wZ

[Note: The wZ is on pilgrimage in India. Here are some of his thoughts.]

I had already swept the monkey poo off the balcony, stretched, showered and chanted..... gazing out the window running through the different Indian flutes that I have collected... trying to get the hang of their playing style ... when a large wooden boat with a banner for a new High rise stretching the length of the vessel appeared.... It seemed totally out of context with all the row boats and Hindi bathers amongst the water buffalo.... It set my mind into motion of the Friends that I visited last night having gone to see a 'Bollywood" movie about a woman falling in love with a Cricket star and leaving her husband.... the theatre was in the new Mall that has been constructed somewhere near the city.... they said it was just like America... with a McDonalds and everything... air conditioned... clean... the theatre better then any that were in Israel, where they are from... sounded quite gross and they too were repulsed... so glad that I haven't come close to any of that thus far.... My mind looking at this boat with its big Western obnoxious Florida type pull behind the plane advertising, right here in this holy city of Varranassi, India.......sitting next to me is the Journey To Ixtlan, by Casteneda... just finishing chapters on calling of the allies and their tremendous power..... at the Very moment that I am thinking that 'Damn" nothing you can do to stop this infection.... I see a big dust cloud roll through the herd of buffalo, two seconds later the bamboo framing holding the banner Snaps with sound of a gun shot, flinging the massive billboard into the water, with the boat attendants scurrying to rescue the intrusion. With a smile of content acknowledgment of the great spirit and the irony of it all... I knew that there was a force to hold it all back and when the time comes that it will show its power.... Beautiful.

Finally falling back into a groove with time and practice.... Awaking an hour before sunrise... watching the first bathers arrive... it gave me contemplation as to going into the Ganga myself at this time... before all the human waste starts pouring in from the city and all the soap, animal funk, people and boats stirring up the now quiet, serene rolling reflection. Learning Balance.... everything cleared out of the room so that the sound is best from the concrete walls and also that I can stretch doing the yoga thing ... basically just standing still for twenty minutes breathing until that near perfect balance is achieved ... almost hallucinogenic watching the mist and swimmers crossing on their daily journey..... as in a dream a murder of crows speckles the sky flying straight towards my window and over the building .... mystical stuff..... It was the caw of the crow that got me to leave the flat today... I was relaxing then the insistent cawing caused me to investigate the sound...outside my window It took a minute to find the bird of omens and when I did I saw that it was cawing at two boys who were comparing watches..... immediate instinctive knowing that I needed to leave because I didn't have enough time to complete all my task... Thank you crow... Thank you Don Juan and Carlos for Your shamanistic outlet in your books.

The water goes out about as often as the electricity ... fortunately the bucket method is what I have grown used to and I had a full bucket to rinse off with.... No such thing as hot water in my building,,, the water is refreshing like a baptism and I get to put on the new shirt and freshly bucket washed white cotton pants to sport about town in....

Figuring out how to keep the placed locked up tight with the cheap locks that are offered ... just have to hope for the best... They haven't got door knobs over here.... any one could come along and lock you in your own place at any time ... a sliding hasp on either side of the door is what the standard door fastener is ... instant cell for a whole civilization.... My place has double doors on al the entrances....the one to the balcony had a big enough hole to let the monkey in so the landlord came down with a hammer and nails.... the hammer was about six inches long on a broken down handle ... no claw ... just a hunk of steel to pound with ... the nails were three or for bent up used ones and a few tacks in a rusty can ... then we were supposed to get a nail through the dense dry hardwood on a termite eaten, sun beaten, falling apart frame of a door.... it took about twenty minutes of trying ... using bricks and scraps ... splitting wood ... bending nails ... till we finally got a tack into the board enough to keep the whole covered ... though even a baby monkey could rip it apart and come steal my bananas... I keep the large room sealed off in the morning so that the sun wont heat up the room ... after a couple hours of flute in the small room ... the big room is more private where no one can really hear me, a better place to chant vocals when timid... Lighting some potent Incense and grabbing the shruti box onto the bed...it was mesmerizing watching the seductive dance of the smoke through the cracked light fragments piercing the darkness....giving the atmosphere a vehicle in which to be seen....the fantastic further dimension revealing itself to all who care to pay attention. Deep guttural hints of Tibetan monk chanting keep seeping out of my lungs as I peek at the glowing red tip of frankincense sticking out of the large old mortar and pedestal by the broken door. The scent eludes me...as it is the motion, the dance, the revelation of sound...something new something sacred, delicate, raw, fresh and innocent joining in the encubance of one thing ... the ever present moment ... no future ... no past... only the now.....

The sound of a persistent author on his/her typewriter just across the temple has been with me since before I awoke ... some dedication ... makes me think of my True artist writer friends back in the states ... the jake berrys and jack randoms of the world ... filling pages with important thoughts, bearing their souls for the sakes of others.... Makes me think of Carlos Castenada's dedication and the story of warrior mentality ... consulting death as an adviser for every action ... there are no miscalculated movements ... pay very close attention ... every move could be your very last one..... act as if this is so.

[Note: Forward comments about this and other postings to jackrandom@ earthlink.net.]

Mind of Mansel: Marking the Past

[Editor's note: I've encountered difficulty posting. These should have been posted as written over the last two months. Fans of Mansel, you should check out the exchange posted on Jake Berry's site.]


Politicians and Fundraisers (It's A Dog's Life)

The campaign trail has inflated to include a ghastly sight that of mongrel dogs serving as waiters at all you can eat $1,000.00 a plate dinners in both sides of the aisle. Any dissident of the dog show circuit will tell you that a good hound will carry a rack of ribs to a good ol Texan contributor better than a poodle but there he is, a small poodle named Spike carrying, or dragging an order to a table of loud Texans at a John McCain luncheon. The dobermans are working the bar and reaping the biggest tips.

Over at the Obama brunch its the Collie's serving up tea sandwiches in an attempt to win over the delights of the Russian Tea Room crown with steaming orders of rock crab. An unusual order for this venue but these older citizens of wealth and power will do anything to rub shoulders or thighs with a true to life star of political power.

- Chris mansel 3/18/07


Undisputedly Theirs, Deprivation


"This is the horror that I see in politics today- a pack of self-righteous hyenas feeding on an unexpected carcass, and getting bloated too fast on all that sudden meat."

- Hunter S. Thompson, in a letter to Jerome Grossman October 20, 1973


Surely somewhere in the Koran there's a quotation than can cover the degradation that is occurring in the White House right now. Not in general mind you, but centered on a balding mama's boy welding a phallic septor in the president's ear (we hope) and speaking in tongues (we're not surprised) about having to testify and government oversight and Karen Hughes and potty talk.

Imagine being press secretary and taking your daily rubdown from non-West German karen hughes and fielding phone calls meanwhile from Ed Meese from his largely buttered compound somewhere in the well-littered but strongly fortified by conservative think tankers who washed out of the dot com craze and have shaved their pubes just in time to pack in for the long hard fight against the Clintons.

Roll call is at 4 a.m. the handout reads and at 3:45 a man weighing 475 pounds in a Keith Olbermann mask walks in the bunk house screaming and blaring on a radio the theme to Rawhide. The faithful assemble and begin kicking one another with sock feet and cursing the New York Times. All the way to breakfast they recite the talking points from the No Spin Zone of Bill O'Reilly and when they sit down to eat a modest repast of lard and boiled gun belt the television is tuned to Fox in the morning.

But the real problem are not these right wing training camps or the evangelical cults that operate under the guise of federal tax law, no it goes much deeper and the road to despair always leads to the middle. As Richard Nixon said that last night, "This last nail is driving me crazy, call the networks!"

As for Iraq it would appear that the Montagnards have returned in the form of terrorists and suicide bombers, fighters who when awakened do not so easily go away.


- Chris Mansel 3/16/07


The Wrong Crutch for the Miracle Mile

It was the first time in a long time that I left a restaurant in the nation's capitol without having to look over my shoulder for G. Gordon Liddy waving handgun and screaming about Scooter Libby and the dismantling of his crutches, the only reason he would be found guilty according to him. One man even tried to ask him about Tim Russert and his showing up to testify with a conveniently broken ankle leaning on some crutches and Liddy attacked the poor bastard like Oliver North straddling a G.I. in the Mekong Delta too passed out to to tell or ask.

It was the first time in a long time and I knew that if Liddy had gone back underground then maybe so had Karl Rove, but as i entered a well known health club I saw Rove doing the breast stroke across the kiddie pool dressed in a three piece suit, the Secret Service maintaining a perimeter, guns drawn. Vicodin and wheat germ for Rove it seems but the bills are torn up before they are even tallied.

- Chris Mansel 3/13/07


Ghost Riders In The Sky

The shots fired in salute over the graves of soldiers all over the world have begun to land. Even the deserters from battle, even the drug addict surgeon who stepped over bodies still breathing during the Civil War to the peace and quiet of the nearby farmhouse, even the politicians who have long since died and who were sworn to secret by defense contractors for their sexual deviant behavior can all come together and see that the war in iraq has spilled over its borders into the halls of Washington's elite circles and have only recently began to do what the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 could not do. The american economy is under attack, the infrastructure that made the financing of the war possible, the situation that allows the United States to put itself into position to borrow money from its enemies to keep the government running could crumble if the first ever four front war were to occur.

Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Nigeria. Some came for hate others came for oil, others came for revenge. It's like a bad spaghetti western only the voices that are dubbed are from the screams of innocent families under fire. Picture the shopkeeper peering out from behind the curtain in the window as he watches Clint Eastwood walk down the middle of the street. But you don't hear Ennio Morricone's score, you hear the sound of helicopters and the recoil of weapons being fired against a concrete barrier. You hear the reviving of an engine and the sound of a woman calling her child into her house from the street. Surreal? Try war. Now try and and operate a functioning economy in the midst of this.

Disease is more than a colored wristband and war is more than a ribbon. War is veterans without arms and legs being told you cannot come here and you must stay here. War is not a stabling force to a troubled economy and war is not a decal or a reason to roll up your sleeves for a half hour and board a bus to the next town. War is not for profit and war, war is not any good for anyone, even those who believe in it.

- Chris Mansel 2/28/07


The Passage of Blood In The Water

They're pumping cold water into the grave of Ronald Reagan to keep the global warming readings down in the California. Even in the desert where Sinatra is buried it doesn't dip into the teens at night anymore. Strom Thurmond's cold night in hell isn't as cold as it used to be. So where do we go from here if the planet does warm up and the great cattle rancher in the sky turns to marsh land and all the lobbyists have to go offshore to warm up the leathers of the flatulent politicians who hold the votes hostage of all those welfare moms while they strum illegal aliens for profit aboard those yachts just off the Maryland Keys?

When the last tree that grows in Brooklyn has been cut down and used to pad the pet carrier of a billionaire's pooch and the last mugger in central park has had to steal a dingy and go pirate then will the Right Wing admit that just maybe they were wrong about the environment? Will the Glenn Beck's of the world have to gnaw off their own arms in regret when in the final turn they find they are seated next to Cindy Sheehan in the last lifeboat to dry land?

The blood in the water, what used to be blood will by then have become something else entirely. A new species perhaps? Roasted in the waste of our own ignorance? Danger, real danger is only as close as the penny slot my friend.

- Chris Mansel 2/27/07


Camelot or Carnival

It is understandable to be weary of politicians any politician. The apparent cause celeb being heaved upon Barak Obama and the comparison to Robert Kennedy in the new issue of Rolling Stone, the once staple of the counter culture, should draw ridicule but will only draw attention from those other publications and news outlets looking to join the hunt where to paraphrase Bob Dylan, "Where the swift don't win the race."

Any talk of Camelot and the Kennedy mystique is always shrouded by the fact that not many have dug into the true nature of that time and what brought about their success and their methods of maintaining their power. The Kennedy years are more than the missile crisis, a small boy saluting, and an assassination. Each event I just mentioned goes to the root and these roots stretch farther than the eye can see underground and collect alot of dirt.

Obama represents to some a new hope and a "piggy back" effect, a duel purpose of ideals and rhetoric both maligned and peace loving. He is the son of a Kenyan father who will no doubt be drawn into some nasty discussions as the campaign wages on about the oil troubles in Nigeria. Republicans will undoubtedly ask about race and make it an issue. The one thing the conservative crowd can depend upon is the racist vote it has coveted for years. Barak Obama will be an easy target. It is still yet to be seen if a Hispanic candidate will appear to polarize the electorate.

- Chris Mansel 2/9/07


The Non-Union of The State

An echo in a backbone, a shredding vertebrae in a human body exhausted by gunfire. As the bullet jumps from flesh to bone to flesh it's not important if the body belongs to a Sunni or a Shiite. Imagine running around with a stretcher on the morning of Sept. 11 and only looking to offer aid and comfort to those who were Catholic or Baptist. In this country that would be labeled as racist but in a country like Iraq we label it Sectarian.

Through the line of Generals that have eased in and out of the green zone there have been little success and more bodies than any one relief agency can count from a Human Rights standpoint. That echo I mentioned earlier is heard in the streets and playgrounds of the United States where more and more John Walker Lindh's are being recruited by the rhetoric of extremist evangelical groups who prey on the very same qualities a pedophile will look for and in some cases the evangelical will eventually turn out to be one in the same.

When you bear in mind that often times we are fighting those that we have armed and trained you can make the example of a nation like Iraq coming to the United States. Sending in arms and training to a gang like the Bowery Boys, could the Iraqi's have made a difference in Tammany Hall or the Know Nothing Party? Could the Iraqi's have played a role in shaping this relatively new country?

Could it be that we the citizens of the United States have been interred inside of our own Abu Ghraib since we invaded? To quote the film Mindwalk, "Is this some sort of Saint Vitus Dance of the mind?" Is this incapacitating and deadly condition our men and women are serving in just a delirium? The Nemesis of terror cannot be defined because you can't throw your arms around a ghost and explode a device, especially if you don't look for him.

I saw the best minds of my generation every night on CNN being shot and wounded. Their families shaken with fear crowded around the same channel hoping for a glimpse or am email to to see if they are still alive. It's just like when I was a child on the news with Walter Cronkite, except then it was Vietnam, a jungle war, but in this war the jungle is street to street not tunnel to tunnel. This is the time to speak up and not because it is a campaign year but because it is a time of lives being lost. Lives of civilians, which include children never forget. Never, ever forget.


- Chris Mansel 1/25/07

Vote No War!

Don't be fooled, the "withdrawal from Iraq" plan that Democratic Party leaders in Congress have just announced is nothing more than a cover to approve Bush's request for $100 billion to fund the war and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan -- in other words, to continue the war.

Democratic Party leaders propose to begin withdrawing troops in a year to 18 months. Over the last 18 months, more than 1,200 US soldiers have been killed and about seven times that many wounded and maimed. A year or 18 months more war is a death sentence for untold numbers of soldiers and even greater number of Iraqis (Note: The ratio of American to Iraqi war dead is an estimated 200:1).

The "withdrawal time tables" along with the "goals and conditions" that the Democrats are proposing are not fundamentally different thatn the ones that Bush proposed in his "State of the Union" address.

Democratic Party leaders can end the war right now if they exercise their power to simply cut of all funding for the war. If they fail, it's not just Bush's war or the Republican war, its the Democratic war as well.

On Monday antiwar activists around the country will begin camping in front of the Capitol Building. We need you to join us. We need you to march on the Pentagon March 17. We need you to march on the streets of every city in America with a united voice: End the war today!

Harry Reid: End the War!

American casualties are up. Iraqi causalities are up. The Bush Administration's strategy is not working. It's time for a change in Iraq, and that's exactly what the legislation I announced yesterday accomplishes.

We can't stay in Iraq forever. The question becomes whether we continue to follow the President's failed strategy or whether we work to change course.

That's why I introduced a joint resolution along with Senators Durbin, Schumer, Murray, Levin, Bayh and Feingold calling for the President to bring stability to Iraq by beginning a phased redeployment of U.S. forces in 120 days with the goal of redeploying most combat forces by the end of March 2008.

Over the last two months, hundreds of thousands of you have come forward to support Senate Democrats. Today I come to you again and ask to show your support by becoming a citizen cosponsor of our plan.

Last November, the American people demanded a new direction. However, Republicans have chosen to green light the escalation. Democrats will not stop fighting for change in Iraq. Now Republicans must join us and put America's future before the President's legacy.

Thank you,

Harry Reid

Mind of Mansel: Jeb & Joe

If you're under the hideous impression that national politics can get no worse then contemplate a Jeb Bush/Joe Leiberman ticket thrusting itself off from a Battle carrier parked just off Palm Beach while its crew members are forced to carry out their duties amidst the whims of the right wing press.

Navy Lt. - Sir, another reporter is crawling in and out of the missile firing station naked and screaming about the undiscovered amendments of the constitution hidden in Paris Hilton's cell phone.

Admiral - Jesus, not again. See if you can coax Hannity out with a copy of the dead and dismembered in Iraq.

Imagine Joe Lieberman trying for at least a few hours to get into one of those flight suits. Imagine Jeb Bush beating or having beaten up every reporter who covered his daughter arrested for drugs and having their bodies buried at sea.

- Chris mansel

The Road to War

>
The road to war is paved with timid hearts and minds
with broken words and fear of naked photographs

The road to war is ribbons and confetti with soldiers
who have no words to trade for fallen comrades

The road to war is blood-stained tears of children
without fathers mothers without sons circles of blood
trust shattered and lost beneath waves of destruction

The road to war is pretending other people are victim
born whose suffering is not real whose hearts do not
bleed whose souls do not cry vengeance

The road to war is sorrow and turning back the wheel of
time remembering when war was peace and justice was
an unseen hand transforming wrong to right

The shrapnel of an improvised explosive rips through the
tender skin of an armored Humvee severed veins arteries
tendons bones cry of children caw of crow the last sound
on the road to war is a ringing of the bells, a soldier’s final
summons

The road to war is roses in a garden a ride on daddy’s knee
photos in a family album the strong the brave the free

The road to war is history
the road to peace a dream

Jazz.

On Behalf of Leonard Peltier

[Note: This comes from the desk of Wisdomkeeper, Harvey Arden.]

~A PLEA TO CONSCIENCE~
On behalf of Leonard Peltier

Firstly to the FBI,
secondly to the President,
thirdly to the American People

VENGEANCE IS YOURS, and you have certainly extracted it from Leonard Peltier and from his People, the indigenous Original People of this Land. After Thirty-One Years of continuing imprisonment on charges that you and we all know are false—and, please, this is long past argument—we ask mercy for, and release from confinement of, our brother Leonard Peltier. We ask only one thing for Leonard: Freedom. We request that the President sign a BLANKET PARDON for ALL acts committed by ALL PERSONS during the so-called “Reign of Terror” three decades ago on the Pine Ridge Reservation, during the years 1972-76. This includes Leonard Peltier, of course, and all other members (at that time) of AIM—the American Indian Movement—as well as members (at that time), most of them now retired, of the FBI, the BIA and other Federal and State governmental agencies, and ALL OTHER PERSONS involved in the dark events of those times. No acknowledgements of guilt or innocence, no admissions, no confessions need be made by any living person on this matter. The President of the United States hereby pardons ALL living persons for ANY crimes whatsoever committed at that place in those dark times. So we, the Undersigned, ask him to write, ending this sad matter. Let the historians figure out in decades ahead who did what to whom in those days. Let Leonard be released and returned to his People, and let this old oozing wound be healed to a scar in all our hearts so that we can turn our collective energies to the Future of our Living Children. Let it be so.

SIGNERS OF THIS PLEA TO CONSCIENCE
#1 Harvey Arden, Washington, DC
#2
#3
#4
ETC

[IF YOU WANT YOUR NAME & CITY/LOCATION ADDED TO THIS PUBLIC PLEA, REPLY TO HARVEYARDEN@STARPOWER.NET WITH “ADD ME” ON THE SUBJECT LINE & PUT YOUR NAME & CITY/LOCATION IN THE BODY OF THE TEXT. I’LL DO MY BEST TO MAKE A SINGLE LIST OUT OF THEM ALL. /HARVEY]

Mind of Mansel: The Glass Half-Broken or Half-Spilled

I'm not a red stater or a blue stater so I categorically deny your attempt to place me in a catagory invented by the mainstream media. When I watch the horriffic news and slaughter of innocent lives around the world I do not under any means interpret what I am seeing by which state I am living in.

I'm not a flag waver unless you include waving the white flag upside down in an unfailing symbol of protest for those who cannot speak for themselves. I am unable to travel to every nation on earth where indigenous people are being destroyed along with their homes by forces more powerful than them so I write what I can and in doing so I wave the white flag and in doing so it waves upside down in a symbol of chaos, of protest and of peace.

I'm not someone who will only get my news from american nightly news. I will not take the news I hear at its surface truth. I will read on further. I will read the International press and I will discern what I believe to be true. I will call a news photo into question if I see it more than once over more than one byline as has happened more than once.

I'm a dissenting opinion, a dissenting writer and a quoter of facts and I stand by those who have fallen and those who stood up. I believe if you take a history textbook in the United States and hold it up and shake it the truth may come tumbling out but it will never find its way into a classroom the way it needs to be. The truth begins at home.

- Chris Mansel

[Contact: christophermansel@hotmail.com.]

Mind of Mansel: J.R. and I in Iraq - part 10

:
In the final stage of the Gulf War, American troops engaged in a ground assault on Iraq, which like the air war, encountered virtually no resistance. With victory certain and the Iraqi army in full flight, U.S. planes kept bombing the retreating soldiers who clogged the highway out of Kuwait City. A reporter called the scene "a blazing hell...a gruesome testament....To the east and west across the sand lay the bodies of those fleeing."

- Howard Zinn, Introduction to the book, "Target Iraq: What The News Media Didn't Tell You" by Norman Solomon and Reese Erlich.

To date almost 35,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq.* You can't stand them end to end as the old saying goes because a good number of them are not all there anymore. Have you seen what these so-called improvised explosive devices do to the legs of a child? You wouldn't see it on American television because it just isn't shown. If you have a sateilite you might catch a glimpse of it on Al Jazeera but that has been dismissed as propaganda so you would just flip away to something else.

As Jack and I watched the man and his family drive away from his home, the dead woman's body in the backseat, we had a pretty good idea what a roadside bomb could do to a body. We had a damn good idea what an american grenade could do to an Iraqi woman of about 70 to 75 years of age. In the front of the house we could hear the radio traffic, it was american military signal. The nearby camp, the one we had just left, was mopping up a recent attack.

It was just a year before that I had seen a reporter from The Sunday Times get decapitated in Jerusaluem in an attack that didn't officially happen during an official visit by the British government while he was riding in a car that I was almost riding in. Everytime I watched a car drive away without me in it I had horrible feelings, like a waking nightmare where the monster crawls up from under the bed and begins assembling the ropes strand by strand and explaining why he is here to kill me.

My worst fears were soon upon me as Jack and I searched intensely for an escape route out of the situation we had volunteered for. It was a small stretch of houses and there was not alot of room to hide if the security forces came looking for us which they were sure to do. They had "skin in the game" to quote a terribly inept phrase of the last century. As the car made its dusty way along the cratered field it came under fire. Jack saw a hole under the house two doors down we could escape through and was pulling me in that direction but just like when I watched the lady gripping the body of the boy in the street before I was frozen in horror. Jack slapped me twice and kicked me in the leg, shouting, "They're coming through the house, damn it come on!"

As we shriveled our way under the house and into a pathway that led up and into the next house over (a pathway which must have been created to escape what i don't know but it was convenient to us), the security forces came through to where we had been standing and on their radios directed the fire on the car the man and his family were trying to escape in.

Up and into the next house which had been abandoned due to the shelling and bombing, Jack and I ran to the front window and saw american military racing to the front of the house. It would be a few moments before they would organize and attempt to secure the area. It was now or never.

We bolted out of the door and ran into the street and turning the corner we ran into a pack of Iraqi civilians who were just as shocked to see us as we were to see them. A man who must have owned the house we came out of screamed at us in English for leaving the door open, "They will tear the place apart, asshole!"

We had to reach a vantage point to keep in view of what was going on but not so close as to remain in the line of fire or identification. In the streets of Iraq this is almost as impossible as in the jungles of Thailand or Laos when you are two american journalists sprayed with blood and shaking in fear.

- Chris Mansel

* Editor's note: Estimates of the Iraqi death toll vary widely. The UN gave an estimate of 35,000 civilians in 2006. The best estimate, without regard to civilian status, is that of the Johns Hopkins study at more than 600,000.

Goodbye, Brother John

There is a special place for the oldest child of any family. The oldest is the first to experience the world and pass his lessons to younger siblings. The family remembers his trials and accomplishments and the elder recalls everything that follows in his wake.

My oldest brother John has lost his struggle for life, as his family struggles to come to terms with all that his life meant and the reasons it should end now.

He was too young and he had so much to live for. Now, we can only hold him in our memories.

He was the first to embrace the counter culture in the turbulent times of the late sixties.

He was among the first to oppose the Vietnam War when it counted most.

He refused to step forward for military induction.

In many ways, he followed his father’s footsteps. Our father always spoke out against injustice and wrong.

John was not blessed with the greatest athletic ability but he played the game – baseball, football, wrestling, golf – as it was supposed to be played. He studied the game and played with passion. He had the guts of a champion and the heart of a giant.

As the proud father of three sons, he became a coach and passed on his knowledge, his passion and his conviction of sportsmanship to them.

He viewed life in the same way that he viewed sports. He engaged it with a sense of justice, fair play, determination, loyalty, honor and dignity that few can rival.

He made mistakes but he was determined to set them right. He did not shirk his responsibilities; he confronted them.

It is ironic that his heart should have failed him because his heart was always his greatest asset. Those he leaves behind will remember his love and determination.

As we remember him now, each in our own way, we can be sure he fought with every ounce of strength he possessed. He always did. When he let go, he did so because he knew it was time.

Goodbye, brother John, you will be missed more than you can know.

The Merton Reflection on the Morality of War

The Merton Reflection for the Week of January 22, 2007

Hence it becomes more and more difficult to estimate the morality of an act leading to war because it is more and more difficult to know precisely what is going on. Not only is war increasingly a matter for pure specialists operating with fantastically complex machinery, but above all there is the question of absolute secrecy regarding everything that seriously affects defense policy. We may amuse ourselves by reading the reports in mass media and imagine that these “facts” provide sufficient basis for moral judgments for and against war. But in reality, we are simply elaborating moral fantasies in a vacuum. Whatever we may decide, we remain completely at the mercy of the governmental power, or rather the anonymous power of managers and generals who stand behind the façade of government. We have no way of directly influencing the decisions and policies taken by these people. In practice, we must fall back on a blinder and blinder faith which more and more resigns itself to trusting the “legitimately constituted authority” without having the vaguest notion what that authority is liable to do next. This condition of irresponsibility and passivity is extremely dangerous. It is hardly conducive to genuine morality.

From:Thomas Merton. Passion for Peace: The Social Essays.William H. Shannon, ed. New York: Crossroad, 1995: 113–114.

[Posted by Jon Berry, Project Editor, University of Alabama Press.]

Jake's Word: Delusional Presidency

I keep trying to think back and research to find a president that was more delusional than this one. With the possible exception of the last months of the Nixon presidency I'm hard pressed to find anything close. There is a long record of incompetence in the office, but nothing approaching this kind of belligerence and nothing with this kind of consequence. One must look at the last days of the Tsars or the Brits at the end of WWI to find so much power in the hands of people simply incapable of dealing with the responsibilities of the job.

Peace, inside and out,
Jake Berry (Author of Brambu Drezi)

Villagization in the Bush Era by Chris Mansel

Escalation or surge, look those words up in the dictionary and apply them to the situation in Iraq, to the re-deployment of National Guard troops, compare that fact to the complete avoidance of regular troops stationed around the world and you begin to get a picture of the terminology, you get an idea of the american economy becoming more and more local as skilled technicans are re-located to repeat tours in what could be certian death.

Edmund Burke wrote, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." But what is the opposite of that quote? For bad men to do their worst? For good men to encourage or to only do what is required by law? When is force required to stop the abhorrence of evil? In Iraq it is whenever you are fired upon if it is humanly possible. If you can run, you run. Held to a higher standard is one way we describe our fighting men and women. That is one way we describe our means of waging war. All of that ended more or less with the waging of the current war in Iraq and the Bush administration. Still we hold our troops to a higher standard but who will hold their superiors to that same level of achievement?

Quoting from The Nation magazine, Senator Edward Kennedy said, "It seems to me that we are at a time of a major escalation into a civil war, that's what the proposal of a surge is really about. This president is going to escalate the American presence and escalate the whole Iraqi war. This is a major mistake and a major blunder. If there's one thing that the election was about last fall was sending a very clear message to Congress and to the president that the American people want accountability. They want a change in direction on Iraq, they want accountability, and they want people to stand up and be counted."

I think all Americans no matter what their party or belief want accountability, they want finally to be told the truth. Countless times history has proven that if the man in office would have just told the truth, if he would have just leveled with the nation things would have been better. This is one of those times. This Gulf of Tonkin was not an attack on the Twin Towers in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001. This Gulf of Tonkin was created out of thin air not long after taking office in the year 2000 or before, we may never know.

Several U.S. Presidents have stood by and watched as genocides have occured, atrocities, and wholesale slaughters. An escalation of 20,000 troops into a nation as unstable as Iraq will undoubtly be a wholesale slaughter and it will not occur fifty years down the road Mr. President when we're all dead, but soon.

- Chris Mansel
Wednesday, January 10, 2007

[Note: See Jack Random's "Bush to America: War!" on Dissident Voice 1.11.07: www.dissidentvoice.org.]

Mind of Mansel: JR & I in Iraq, Part 9

(Note: Parts 1-8 below.)

If you took the weight of the ocean that erupts in pain at the slightest breeze from across the world and threw it at a child and then took notes on the impact you'd see before your very eyes what war can do. Those notes would be the propaganda you could use to turn the tide on the floor of the U.S. congress and that propaganda could sustain any rationale of turmoil or loss or life. Sound irrational? In the young year of 2007 the political landscape of the world has become the wall that mankind has been backing up towards since the beginning of time. The spear flies through the eye of the storm, through its splendour and blue skies, through the calm and bereft moment of wreckage only to land as the clouds begin to darken and the rains re-approach from the east.

There is no soundtrack on the ground, "boots on the ground" as they say. No combat photographer in khaki has a camera crew following him or her around making sure they are captured in the right light as they help the wounded child to safety or as they seduce the Catholic missionary in the dimming light of the battlefield. War is ugly, it is obscene and the sounds you hear are the screams and the sounds of gunfire, the recoil. If you listen close enough you can hear the gunman next to you change his field of vision, not because you have spent so much time together in a war zone or in that distinct battle but for the fact that your senses are so heightened that your fears are leaping so far from your skin they erupt like the ocean with the slightest breeze from the gunman's movement from across the room.

Jack and I had been in many situations before where our lives were in danger and we had been in situations where we were so compelled into an idea that as we moved along with the story we ached for adventure or excitement.

On the campaign trail, following presidential candidates we would often sneak away from the subject and do what the industry calls a "human interest" story. You've read that line before and wondered what that means. It's not slice of life or inspirational as you might think. A hardened newspaper or wire service editor will call it a story about a nobody, a worthless sidebar or whatever he can come up with at the moment until it gets picked up or noticed. Then you are gold.

For instance we did a story once on a midnight shooting about a woman who was shot two blocks away from a hotel where a candidate was staying. It was a parallel piece. We mirrored their movements. As the candidate was taking the stage and fluffing out his speech she was being struck by the first shot. As the candidate told the first of many jokes in his speech the cartilage in her leg exploded and severed the nerve in her leg and she began to bleed uncontrollably.

When the story was presented the next day we were attacked from one end of the country to the next for sensationilizing the candidates visit to that dear city. We were told directly not to come back. This was the way we felt as we raced ahead of a grenade in Iraq in the back of a car with a family who's only thought earlier that day was survival.

As we each grabbed a leg and the man cradled her head we hurried as best we could out the back of the house. The noise was unbelievable. We could hear the private security forces shouting in english behind us. I was bleeding and all I could think about was their safety and Jack's and going back out the front of the house and somehow returning fire with whatever I could find. I had been shot at before by americans in my own country but not in Iraq. These were criminals, government sponsored thugs who were sure to get away with murder if we didn't do our job.

As we got outside the man's family was cowering in the front of the car mindful that we had to get the now deceased matron of the family into the backseat. I've never helped to put a dead body into a small car, especially one that I had to ride in also. I looked up and Jack's expression was of hurt and anger. He was quiet which was unlike him in a situation of stress but I was aware that he was focused.

As we got her into the car the man noticed that my hand was bleeding. In poor english he took me by the bicep and said, "Wait, here."

He reached into the backseat and tore a piece from the old woman's dress and wrapped it around my hand and tied it there. I couldn't move I was so struck by what he had done. Tears sudenly and immediately streamed down my face. The man padded me on the arm and shook Jack's hand and motioned us into the backseat of the car.

I looked at Jack and he looked at me. I couldn't do it and neither could he. There was no way we could crawl inside on top of the woman even if it meant that we would be shot at any minute. That was the difference between people like this man and his family, people like Jack and myself and the people who were terrorizing this country from both sides. We were good at heart and could not and would not break the simple and fundamental means of life that make us who we are.

We motioned for him to get in the car and go. He tried and tried to get us to get in but we said no.

Jack stammered, "No, take your family and go! Go! Go!"

As we watched the man drive away his son turned around in the front seat and watched us with no expression. I don't think he had any idea what was taking place but it saddened me to know that this boy would remember it all some day. War is no place for a child.

- Chris Mansel

Contact: christophermansel@hotmail.com.

Mind of Mansel: JR & I in Iraq, Part 8

(Parts 1-7 below)

The only human right you have in Iraq these days outside the idling engine of a military transport plane is just that, you are a human at that moment. But step out of the plane into the dusty air and you are the margin for victory, a landslide on the abacus. Translate that into political capitol and you are the means to an end, the straw on the camel's back that like a dowser's wand leads the way to the oil, damn the body count, this is war. Damn men, stiff upper lip and all, this is economics.

It's hard to keep a global ledger in mind when you are bleeding on an Iraqi street. It's even more difficult when you are in the grass which is much cooler but is covered not only in your blood but the blood of children and the twisted metal of automobiles and weapons. Any weapons in a firefight can be a weapon of mass destruction when paint is tearing and flicking away into your eyes, remember that if you ever find yourself hunted by the military of your own country in a foreign land.

The car bomb exploded again as best we could figure as there was another explosion almost right away. One thing you will never understand if you are ever in Iraq is the term, Improvised Explosive Device. That description alone brings to mind Timothy McVeigh going into a Wal-Mart and buying a few items and coming out with two shopping bags and some d cell batteries. There is nothing improvised about any of these devices, nothing thrown together on a whim. It's not like the Vietcong rushed down from the jungles of North Vietnam with just some nails and fertilizer and had to first find a rental truck or take flying lessons. Read back through the reports from Iraq when Saddam was in power and there weren't any I.E.D.'s being exploded. Create the demand and journalists will recoil only slightly before rushing in and that was where we were, rushing in on our bellies.
I looked up and noticed the Iraqi man with the black handkerchief had taken off his disguise and had exposed his american features. I grabbed my camera and shot a few stills of him reloading. Using the second explosion as cover the famalies who had been caught out in the open ran to cover as shots sprayed the streets like vipers snipping at their heels. I grabbed Jack and pulled his face over to mine, his look of confusion moved to anger as he noticed the american.

Jack whispered to me, "Dirty son of a bitch!"

Looking around us we noticed the famalies had made it to cover and one man was waving us over to the door of a storefront.

I grabbed Jack by the shoulder and notioned to him, "We got to make it, the bastard knows we're here."

As soon as I seriously allowed myself to consider running across a street being riddled with gunfire I instantly thought to myself, "You're a journalist and this asshole is trying to make you a soldier!"

I choked back fear and crippling anxiety and slinging blood from my hand onto the street I darted across the street with Jack alongside me. We made it just as the entire front of the building erupted in flames and smoke as a grenade was shot into the street in front of the wall. Once inside the man and his family motioned for us to follow them. As we made our way through the store the man stooped for a moment and stopped to pick up the body of a woman who had been shot. The bullet had gone clear through her skull and glass had sprayed her face, scarring it horribly. Jack and I each grabbed a leg and with the man we made our way to a vehicle outside.

We searched the roofs for private security forces but saw none, evidently they hadn't planned ahead and this gave us pause. We were at least 45 minutes late to the scene and this was as far as they had gotten. What had stopped them? What had we missed? Somehow we had to find out if they had suffered any casualities and we had to ask our saviors here what had happened but first we had to reach a safe distance.


- Chris Mansel

Mind of Mansel: J.R. and I in Iraq - part 7

(Note: Parts 1-6 below.)

As we approached the scene of the ambush the humvee took fire. Families were gathered over the wreckage of what were once bodies. If you have ever seen footage on television of men and women in some third world backwater holding one another and crying uncontrollably and waving their arms at the cameras and pointing at the bodies then you didn't smell the bodies burning. You didn't see the casual way the network cameraman replaced the film in his camera and began taking photos again like the carnage was just another stop on the way to the Pulitzer. He knows that he will be back in another watering hole soon enough.

In Iraq it's not like in Vietnam. You didn't just hop aboard a C-140 and then grab a Huey out to a shithole to scrap about to the shit. In Iraq the shit was the day of Tet, every single day. Thanks to a foreign policy of "Bring 'em on." One thing Jack and I could never figure out was why they called the area where the american troops where located the Green Zone. The only thing we came up with was when we interviewed the civilians in Iraq and they all responded with the same word, "Halliburton."

Halliburton had funded this attack. Private security forces had opened fire on innocent men, women, and children.

We turned around and around, Jack turning the humvee against the shooting and slammed the front across the curb of the highway. Both sliding out of the driver's side, we were still taking fire.

Jack screamed out, "You see where it's coming from?"

I was caught, frozen in the moment. I was watching a woman as she caressed the head of a boy. As she lifted his head up to her lips I could see that half of his head had been shot away. Blood had caked around his nostrils and from there, there was nothing. Somewhere on the bloody street his bloody mouth had been torn violently from him. As rounds exploded all around her she wept uncontrollably. While others ran for cover and Jack and I tried to save our lives she was shot through the heart while mourning the loss of this child.

Jack gripped my shoulder, "You see where it's coming from?"

I was shocked back into consciousness when a shot knicked my wrist and sent blood shooting across my hand. Before I had a chance to cuss or holler I looked up and noticed an Iraqi man wearing a black handkerchief aiming at my head from across the street. I jumped up instantly and grabbed Jack and jumped into the pool of blood in the grass by the front wheel.

The Iraqi man fired just as I jumped and just missed me. Jack cussed as I crushed all of my body weight on top of him, sending him face first into the bloody grass. We rolled and came up for air just as a car bomb exploded up the street.

The news cameraman crawled over to us, "Either one of you journalists?"

Jack and I looked at each other, I responded, "Now just what in the hell does that matter now?"

The cameraman didn't bat an eye, "I thought you might get my film to the network office, my cell is fubar."

I stared at the cameraman a moment and said, "Oh sure, yeah, we'll get it there, no problem."

He answered, "Great, tell'em about ten or twelve dead maybe more, I'm going after the car bomb."

The cameraman made his way crawling on his belly through the bloody grass in the direction of the explosion.

Jack smiled as he watched me open the film canister and expose the yellow film to the flames not three feet away from us. I handed the film to Jack and he tossed it in. We weren't going after the car bomb, we were going after the truth and fame and glory didn't have any role in this tragedy.

- Chris Mansel

Mind of Mansel: JR & I in Iraq, Part 6

(Note: Parts 1-5 below)

Moving around in Iraq you can be reminded of the image of James Cagney's famous line, "Top of the world ma!" But only if you look at it from the ant's point of view. Imagine the ant as an insurgent. Yeah, top of the world but the top has a hole in it and it goes all the way to the bottom. The bottom branches out and comes up to a point and resembles a volcano. But rather than resemble the fiery furnance of the first Gulf War, (the image of the Iraqi oil fields graced all manner of media around the world) but now the volcano is purging blood, oozing limbs and the mangled childhoods of burnt and homeless Iraqi children.

How do you approach a crime scene in a war zone? How do you make your way through a maze of distraught family members who are rushing around helpless to the carnage of their family members having been shot by officially licensed gunmen by the government who has invaded their country. If you are a reporter you make it clear to all those who are around that you are a reporter, a correspondent, and are not armed. If the privately armed security force is still present you make it damn clear that you are american, but you also make it clear that you are someone more important than you are. You impress upon them that it wouldn't be so good to open up on you and you pray like a virgin on her wedding night that their cell phone batteries have gone dead and haven't gotten a call from a particular Marine major.

As we sped away we could see in the distance black smoke billowing out of a building in the distance. Ahead of us in a pickup two Iraqis were shifting around nervously in the seat and as we came alongside them they shot a nervous glance at us until they realized we were not U.S. soldiers but they could not know if we were not private sercurity forces, who in some circles have been called cowboys. There was even a rumor in command circles of a Taliban website that referred to the "cowboys" being displaced in Iran, not unlike the way american forces were moving across the Cambodian border in Vietnam. As we rode alongside the truck for what seemed like two minutes the Iraqi in the passenger seat raised a pistol up to eye level and aimed at my head. I yelled for Jack to speed up and Jack hit the gas and we sped along as four shots bounced off of our Humvee.

I yelled over to Jack, "I hate to ask a stupid question but how much gas do we have?"

Jack answered, "As far as I know we've got enough to get to the site of the ambush but what do you think about ditching this Humvee?"

I thought for a minute and asked, "I don't know, something bothers me about that shit back at the camp. How the hell do you lob mortars at a camp and miss by a hundred yards and manage to hit with a fragmentation grenade? How the fuck do you explain the physics of that one?"

Now Jack looked worried, "You think the frag was a cover to get at me?"

"Well Jack, you did hear the phone call..."


- Chris Mansel

Mind of Mansel: JR & I in Iraq, Part 5

(Parts 1-4 below)

Driving through the wasteland that has become Iraq you pray you'll run into an arms dealer and you'll also pray he'll have some legs and a few hands, some teeth and eyes. You hope he'll start the bidding with a request for just a drop of water to pour atop the loaves and fishes he has brought to feed the warring tribes as they sit down and start to calmly discuss the atrocity that is unfolding on american television that has been unbelieved so far on Al Jezerra. Maybe you'll cringe when he says offhandly that he was kept out of Rwanda because the prosthetics he had brought along couldn't make it through customs years before the tightened security of 9/11. But then again in Iraq as in many other war zones in modern times the dust will get in your eyes and you'll be able to blame the blurred lines of aggression, of morality, on the weather and the politics of plurality, the obscenity of greater good, on something in your eye. but to the racist marine Jack was dealing with it was something eaten away at his soul a long time ago. Not a speck of dust introduced at the factory but a giant ball of hatred either beaten or lovingly enthralled upon a young boy who before he knew hot to hate was taught that one man was better simply by the color of his skin and it was unfortunate for his fellow Marines and the citizens of Iraq that this individual was not weeded out and was armed and set loose in a war zone. A casualty is a number in any year whether it contains an election or not, and in Iraq as well in America the news was not good.

Then almost as if on cue came the Marine from Tennessee behind the wheel of a Humvee. In the distance came a mortar attack, it's the sound you'll never forget if you ever hear it once. The entire camp reacted at once. The Major that Jack had interviewed came out of his command post and was scanning the desert for the action. Marines were running for their companies and there was hollering all around us. The Marine from Tennessee seemed unfazed. In Jack he saw a direct line to the killing and he was not about to be tied down to waiting for orders and seeing whether or not he would see action that day.

The Humvee came to a sudden stop in front of Jack as he tried not to jump out of his skin. The Marine jumped out and started counting the clips for his M16. "Gotta go get some, just a mortar, maybe just a few of'em!"

Jack was still keeping an eye out for the Major who hadn't discovered us just yet. But we had a problem. Jack was on one side of the camp and I was on the other and in the middle was the Major and a camp in a frenzy stocked full of Marines with posters of Osama Bin Laden with supermodels taking a dump on his face and handdrawn pictures of Bin Laden on diaylsis being tied down to an electric chair repeatedly.

Just as Jack and I were about to lock eyes across the camp and exchange a voiceless means of communication we had managed to develop in some of the world's worst hot spots, an incendiary device went off inside of the camp and the mess tent went up in flames. The explosion was minimal but sent a surge further into the camp as another mortar landed about a hundred yards away from the camp.

Jack grabbed the Marine from Tennessee and screamed, "What are you boy a Dixie Chick or Daniel Boone? Get in there and get some!" Pointing at the spot whers the mortars landed he got the Marine's attention and he raced off to where Jack had pointed. Jack seized the moment and jumped behind the wheel of the Humvee. Dodging troops who were running for the mess hall more from curiousity than anything, Jack skirted the perimeter and made his way to me and I jumped in the open driver's side and we were off. Speeding down the only road out of the camp that wasn't being hit by mortars we were on our way to the site of an ambush knowing all along that a marine Colonel knew who we were and that we knew that he was related in more than one way to the incident.

The words of the racist marine rung in my ears, "You think no one has fragged anybody since Vietnam?"


- Chris Mansel

Mind of Mansel: JR & I in Iraq, Parts 3 & 4

JR and I in Iraq - part 3

Dodge city, that's what the Marine's called the area we were in. One marine, so young he shaved once or at least twice a week whether he needed it or not had already killed three people. When I asked whether or not they were insurgents or civilians he just answered, "Well, one was shooting back and the others weren't, but screw'em man. I say arm yourself, shit we're MWA bitch, Marines with attitude!" Raised on MTV this white marine was born in Tennessee and had served a tour in the KKK while still in high school he told me before I even asked where he was from. When I asked him how he liked serving alongside other Marines he laughed and spit at the burning sand.

"You want to know what I think about all these highly esteemed people of color? They're all marines ain't they?" Then he laughed and patted his weapon and slapped it down to his side and saluted me and added, "You think nobody fragged anybody since Vietnam?"

How bad an epidemic racial strife between soldiers serving in Iraq was we might never know. Jack had secured an interview with a Major and was coming back across the camp and looked worried. As he walked he looked around, his head looking this way and that the way someone does before they tell you a secret or avoid someone they do not want to see. In the soundtrack in my head I instantly heard "Peace Frog" by the Doors. I don't know why these things always occur to me but they do. I remember a time in Chicago when I was covering a story on the heated talks betwen labor and management and War's "Spill That Wine" hit me all of a sudden and within minutes violence broke out and I spent the night in a jail cell fighting for my life.

Jack got over to me and his voice was quiet which was unlike him in so many ways. "This Major I went to talk to just got a call about an ambush of civilians. They were targeted by security forces." I looked around now because I wanted to be the first to get there and because the security forces always have friends serving in just about every platoon in Iraq and many after their tour is up will join private security to cash in.

I asked Jack, "How do we get there?"

Jack replied, "That's just it, the guy that called him while I was sitting there is his brother, and his nephew was in charge of the group that opened fire. I just got out of the office before the crazy bastard could call a corporal to detain me."

I looked around and as far as I could see were Marines with weapons at the ready, well trained and loyal to their commanding officer, the chain of command. I stood to scout a method of transportation, a friendly ride to anywhere other than where we were and saw the Marine from Tennessee. I turned to Jack and looked back at the racist marine and I thought I might have a plan. Shit it worked in Hollywood.

-----------------

Author's Note: (Before beginning to write this next installment I see this excerpt from the New York Times, and I am constantly reminded that the ugliest of man often occurs to me and as I see through their eyes it makes me want to close mine. I had no idea of this report before I wrote about the racist Marine but I am not surprised as human nature often tends to lean toward that line from Apocalypse Now that quotes Abraham Lincoln, you know the one, "Sometimes the dark side overcomes what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature and good does not always triumph." I don't see any good in this, after all where can there be good in starting out to shoot someone because of thier skin color?)


"Lance Corporal Woods is black. He smoked in the darkness and said it has been a topic of conversation in his unit, Mobile Assault Platoon Five. "Valdez and me talked about that," he said. "He's Hispanic. He said, 'Man, I'm going to paint my skin darker, man.' That's what he said. And the next day he got shot."

"I hate this place," he said..."Out here, it really makes you love your country. I love my country, man. I love my country. I didn't hate my country before, man. But I had some problems with it."

"The United States of America," he said. "That sounds like heaven right now."

C.J. Chivers, "Marine Unit and Iraqis Fend Off Attacks and Boredom," NY Times, 7 December 2006.


JR and I in Iraq - part 4

Jack and I came up with a plan. Racists are notoriously patriotic, reference most of America's history, governmental and citizenry for evidence of this, and certianly ignorant, so Jack approached the marine from Tennessee playing the role of a C.I.A. agent.

Jack approached the racist marine who was kicking at the sand and aiming his weapon at the horizon.

"Hey, you hear about that American got shot in Fallujah yesterday?"

The marine looked around and then looked Jack up and down. He didn't take but a second or two to size up Jack. "Yeah, terrible shot that guy, took'em two."

Jack laughed, "Yeah well, what are you gonna do, poor training."

They both laughed and Jack shot me a worried and disgusted look.

Jack went on, "Say, John Russell, C.I.A., in country to take care of some loose ends. Not saying we need some help but always looking for some willing participants, those who can be covert and keep their goddamn mouth shut. It's below the radar of course." Then Jack snatched the weapon from the racist marine's hands so fast he told me later it scared even him, "So, you got the balls to pull the trigger without caring where the rounds land or are you just another weekend faggot here till your wife fucks the whole town back home?"

The racist Marine stood up and drew a knife and said, "I'm an American, ever since 9/11 I wanted to do what was necessary for my country to fight terrorism!"

Jack didn't break a sweat and went back after him, throwing the weapon to the ground, "Since 9/11? What were you doing before that? Working in a conveinence store and cheating on your mother? Real American? Shit!"

The racist Marine was livid now and was ready to open fire on anyone. Jack knew he was ready and in less than five minutes.

Jack said, "Ok,you're what we need. What we need right now is a humvee. Think you can get one here and I mean now Marine?"

The Marine flashed a shit-eating grin, "Before you know it!."


- Chris Mansel

Mind of Mansel: JR & I in Iraq

Jack Random and I in Iraq - part 1

Jack Random and I burst into Iraq like a widow at a train station all out of quarters for the condom machine for that last ride to New Jersey for the High school reunion. The White House press office kept offering us our own poppy fields in the hills of Afghanistan if we just wouldn't go to Iraq. After breaking the story of Karl Rove and the Washington sex trade they would do anything to keep us away from the story. We were determined and even thought to go thru the wilds of Pakistan but why muddle in with the retreat of the Taliban, we end up in their clutches soon enough we were wagering.

Anyway, we hit the Iraq oil fields to the sight of an american truck broke down. Roadside bombs it was said weren't going off near the oil fields anymore since it was common knowledge the americans would be out of the country in force by the end of 2007. The George Baker plan had just hit amazon.com and all of Beirut we had read over the wires had ordered a copy and soon all of Iraq would be reading it through the black market. Once again Ed Meese would be popular among those who killed for pleasure.

The drivers of the two trucks both U.S. military soldiers were cursing at the four Iraqi members of the police who had driven by earlier and had took off quickly and laughed at the two of them stranded. One of the soldiers wanted to go off and shoot the Iraqi police and the other had for weeks left on the most recent one year tour in country. When we asked them about the term "boots on the ground" they responded with as much hate and vigor as they had when we asked about the Iraqi police.

"Boots on the ground, goddamn! I tell you what the boots on the ground think about this f-cking war, there's too much blood, too much Iraqi blood and too much american blood, and not enough old blue blood from any red states!" The soldier kicked the front of the truck violently and looked back at us quickly, "Just why are you here anyway? I don't see no boots on the ground here between you two."

We reassued the two soldiers that we wanted to report an honest portrayal of what was going on in Iraq. The other soldier who had remained quiet for most of the time spoke up, "Let me tell you something. We were on a patrol about a month ago maybe two. A roadside bomb goes off and these Iraqi troops start firing at one another, ripping each other apart and we have to mop it up. How long have we been here and we are getting killed every day. Sometimes I just want to start shooting and I don't honestly give a shit what I hit."

Jack Random and I In Iraq - part 2

How many screams did you hear until you knew they were coming from someone you could identify as someone other than yourself? That's a question you need to ask yourself when you have spent any time in a war zone.

Here we were in a war zone and as soon as we arrived we noticed that the poppy had followed here from the shores of america, from the rocky cliffs of Afghanistan. We investigated the cities amidts the sound of automatic gunfire and saw parents in the desert grip of drug addiction dealing with the unthinkable loss of three children in one day. We saw one child get his legs torn apart as visiting dignitaries bid farewell to the high security fences of Halliburton's white table cloths on CNN and its high rise bleachers. The grimace of Donald Rumsfeld quoting the words real or imagined from a wounded soldier at Walter Reed hospital.

In the days of slavery the crowd were treated to question and answer sessions between the seller and the slave. The slave was usually being judged by the crowd as to their build or visual strength so the Q&A were usually for the delight of the crowd and so in Iraq are the questions to Iraqi civilians as weapons are put in their faces by privately hired security, militia anywhere else in the world, or if you like insurgents in Iraq if it were not for the tax form they can produce given six months notice. We ran into these thugs several times and had our lives threatened until we lied and said we were with some government agency we made up on the spot. This never ceased to amazed us as it always pumped them up more in their blood lust and obscene patriotism for the red in the flag.

On american television the obsession is with crime scene investigation and forensics. There are no investigations to speak of in a war zone, especially not in Iraq. For instance, if you wanted to dig a mass grave and hide it with any education it wouldn't be too difficult, after all it is a desert region. This can work to the benefit of both sides in any war. Body counts make for headlines a soldier said once, just draw a line straight to the head, and you'll usually find more than one.

- Chris Mansel

The Ribbon That Hung The Hanging Tree

(the mind of mansel)

its a crisis of burden to spread
quasi-political hellhounds of the dead
pentagon militias hired away privately
these dead look nothing like you and me
neighborhoods of america waiting they say
waiting for the next colored ribbon to display

its an administrative change just one more
lets clean up some of that blood from the floor
this humvee don't make left turns
this civil war won't be televised by ken burns
neighborhoods of america they say
waiting for the next colored ribbon to display

bin laden could be in london sending back food
for all we know he could be under the unabomber's hood
maybe he's not really hooked to a machine
what is real and what's really obscene
neighborhoods of america they say
waiting for the next colored ribbon to display


Chris Mansel

Contact: christophermansel@hotmail.com.

Parts of Africa

It was in a country as small
as a country road stretches across an american county
that lives were taken for no other
reason than they could be taken
like wolves process for fur and meat
and the chickens allowed to run free
the shadows must be pulled from the limbs
the leaves of warfare pulled from the fruit
the bark of the machete, the stems of the aroma
wafting back upon the earth

- Chris Mansel

And Here's to Bolivia...

for Jack Random

and here's to Boliva
I've held your export in my hand
my government uses it to fund the Taliban
but it doesn't matter anyway
the U.N. changed the charter
and the weapons were never seized
that killed the Doctors Without Borders

- Chris Mansel